Stefanie Rolfsmeier, Paul Simons
Year:
2014
Bibliographic info:
International Workshop: Quality of Methods for Measuring Ventilation and Air Infiltration in Buildings | Brussels, Belgium 18-19 March 2014

Because of temperature-based uplift within the building and the impact of wind on the building, airtightness measurements of high buildings are especially challenging. Temperature differentials between the building interior and the exterior with particularly high buildings can lead to excessively high baseline pressure differentials on the building envelope while the impact of wind can cause their extreme fluctuation, both of which may have a negative effect on the measurement. 
This paper will present two airtightness measurements with a special test set-up in the same high-rise building at different times, i.e. under windy conditions and in calm weather. The first measurement was conducted at a wind force of 4 Beaufort. Two weeks later, a second airtightness measurement was conducted in calm conditions. This is highly interesting for the measuring practice of large buildings, because the testing date is usually set based on constructional and organizational aspects and only rarely takes into account optimal weather conditions. This presentation compares the test results of both airtightness measurements and in addition to sharing the experience from these measurements is also meant to prompt a discussion of the error of measurement with regard to the measuring standard EN 13829.